John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Be that as may, Chicamec replied in effect, he was the father of Henry Burlingame III, whom he himself had set afloat to drown. He went on to tell a most surprising tale for which Quassapelagh, clearly his favorite, provided a running translation, deferring with reluctance to Drepacca at the more difficult passages:

"The Tayac Chicamec is a mighty foe of white men!" he began. "Woe betide the white-skinned traveler who sets foot on this island while even one Ahatchwhoop dwells here! For the Ahatchwhoops will not be sold into slavery like the people of Drepacca, nor traffick for English guns and English spirits like the people of Annoughtough and Panquas, nor yet flee their homes and hunting-places — "

"Like the people of Quassapelagh," Drepacca obliged.

"Rather will they put to the torch every white man who stumbles into their midst, and lead the great war-party that shall drive the English Devils into the sea, or else die fighting here upon their island, under the white man's guns!"

Here Ebenezer interrupted. "You must ask the Tayac Chicamec the reason for his wrath, Quassapelagh: I judge from yonder journal-book that his people have suffered small harm from the English these four-score years. He hath not one tenth the grievance of Quassapelagh or Drepacca, yet he shews ten times their spleen."

"My brother asks a barbed question," said Quassapelagh with a smile. "I shall put it to the Tayac Chicamec without the barbs."

He did so, and with the typical indirection of the savage, Chicamec ordered the chest brought out again in lieu of immediate reply. This time he took out the journal himself — the guards knelt down at once and lowered their eyes — and held it grimly at arm's length.

"This is The Book of English Devils," he said through Quassapelagh. "Its tale you know: how my godlike father, the Tayac Henry Burlingame One, did best the great Attonceaumoughhough as champion for Wepenter, and drove off the English Devils from our land."

"Nay, one moment — " the poet protested, but thought better of it at once. "I mean to say, he was in sooth a mighty man."

"He drove out the English Devils upon their ship," Chicamec resumed, "and then pursued them himself along the shore, for it was his vow that he would follow them to their next encampment and there destroy the lot. He crossed to the northern mainland by canoe and ran all day along the shore of the marshy Honga, up whose reaches the unwary Devils sailed. And when these Devils put ashore to make their camp, then did the Tayac Burlingame spring to kill them, with no weapon save his hands. But Wepenter had mistrusted the courage and godlike prowess of the white-skinned Werowance and had followed after with a war-party, and for this sin the gods bound fast my father's limbs with invisible thongs, so that the Devils slew Wepenter and divers others, and made good their escape before my father could destroy them. But in their haste they left behind this book, in which was writ the Tayac Burlingame's mighty deeds, and he preserved it to remind all future ages of Ahatchwhoops that the English are the seed of those same Devils, and must be slain on sight.

"Now you must know that my heavenly father was a man of no common parts in carnal matters; but as the storm-god stores his strength for many moons and then in a night lays waste the countryside, so the Tayac Henry Burlingame One had a---"

"A member," Drepacca offered, for the second time that day.

"It was no greater than a puppy's, nor more useful, nor did he go into the Queen Pokatawertussan for three full nights after the Feast. But on the fourth, so say our legends, he summoned her to the bed, and performed the Rites of the Holy Eggplant, after which he got a child in her so mightily, she ne'er left her bed again, and died in bringing me forth!

"For twenty-six summers thereafter," Chicamec's tale continued, "the Ahatchwhoops lived in peace under my father's rule. Our fishermen brought us stories of English Devils far to the south, and divers times we saw their great white ships go up the Bay, yet never did they put ashore on our island or the nearby mainland. And great was my father's wrath against them: when my mother the Queen Pokatawertussan was in travail, he vowed to her he'd slay their child ere its cord was cut, if it was born white. And he named me Henry Burlingame Two, but called me by an Ahatchwhoop name, Chicamec. Every day he would read The Book of English Devils, and farther inflame the Ahatchwhoops to murther any white man who fell into their hands. In my twenty-sixth year he died, and with his last breath told our people that the Tayac Chicamec would guard their town against the English Devils, and he swore me to a mighty oath, that I would slay any white-skinned man who came among us, even from the wombs of my wife and concubines.

"Loud were the wails of the Ahatchwhoops upon his passing, and when I became Werowance in his stead, I prayed for a sign of favor from the gods. At once a terrible storm crashed all about us and blew hither a medicine-man from amongst the English Devils, all senseless and half drowned — by which sign we knew the gods favored my reign and my cause. Lest any of our number doubt he was a Devil and take him for a human like ourselves, I held forth our totem for him to reverence, and being a Devil, he spat upon it. Thereupon we offered him the privileges of the damned and burnt him next day in yonder court, as you all — save the brother of Quassapelagh — shall burn."

"Stay, prithee!" cried Ebenezer, whose mind had been wrestling with dates and recollections. "Captain Smith made his voyage in 1608, and you murthered this English Devil in your twenty-sixth year: I say, Quassapelagh, ask him whether that chest yonder did not belong to this medicine-man he speaks of. ."

The question was translated and answered affirmatively.

"I'faith, then — one more question: hath the Tayac Chicamec any other sons besides my friend Henry Burlingame?" He strove to recall the tales he'd heard from the Jesuit Thomas Smith and from Mary Mungummory. "Hath he a son now dead called Charley. . Moccassin? Mackinack? Nay, not that. . 'twas Mattassin, I believe."

At mention of this name Chicamec's face went hard, and his reply, according to Quassapelagh, was, "The Tayac Chicamec hath no sons."

Ebenezer was sorely disappointed. "Ah well, no matter, then; 'tis only a curious coincidence of events."

"Quassapelagh's brother doth mistake us," Drepacca put in pleasantly. "The Anacostin King hath Englished Chicamec's words, but not his meaning." He turned to Ebenezer. "In truth the Tayac Chicamec hath sons, but they both deserted him to live among the English, and he hath disowned them. One was the man you mentioned, whose name I shan't repeat: he slew a family of English and was hanged."

"Then I'm right!" the poet exulted. "This medicine-man was a Jesuit missionary, and yonder are his soutanes and holy-water! And 'sbody — " His imagination leaped to new connections. "Doth it not follow that Burlingame is half-brother to this murthering Mattassin?"

No one else in the hut, of course, was in a position to appreciate these revelations. The second mention of Charley Mattassin's name elicited strong rebuke from Chicamec.

"Methinks you should be proud of him," Ebenezer ventured. " 'Tis true his victims were Dutch and not English, but they were white-skinned in any case."

"Take care, Brother," warned Quassapelagh. "I shall tell the Tayac Chicamec that you apologize for calling Mattassin his son."

This done, the old chief went on with his story, and for the first time an emotion other than wrath and malevolence could be noticed in his tone:

"For many summers the Tayac Chicamec had denied himself the joys of a wife and sons," Quassapelagh translated. "His heavenly father Henry Burlingame One had given him to know that his seed was mixed, and had farther sworn him to destroy any white-skinned issue; therefore, to spare himself the pain of putting a child of his own to the spear, he chose to live and die without the solace of a family.